Govt depts advised not to exceed April expenditure by more than 5%

The Finance Department of the Delhi Government has asked the administrative secretaries and head of departments to ensure that the expenditure for the month of April “should not exceed more than 5 per cent” of the total Budget allocated to their departments in the recently presented budget estimates for 2025-26 financial year.

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According to an official order, exclusively accessed by The Tribune, the said instructions for curtailing expenditure were issued to ensure “better cash management”. The Finance Department on March 31 issued Demands for Grants for financial year 2025-26 for incurring expenditure.

“Considering the mapping of expenditure with the resources of the Government of NCT of Delhi and for better cash management, the expenditure during April 2025 is capped at 5 per cent of the total budget allocation in 2025-26 budget estimates under the respective budget heads,” an excerpt from the order read.

However, the government has exempted salaries, allowances (excluding arrears), security and sanitation, electricity and water supply, telephone, postage charges, petrol, oil, lubricants (POL) and maintenance of staff car from the aforementioned 5 per cent capping.

The Director (Budget) of the Finance Department, in the order, asked administrative secretaries and Head of Departments to make sure that the expenditure does not exceed 5 per cent of the total allocated budget when they issue ‘expenditure sanction’.

Notably, the newly formed BJP government in Delhi had on March 25 presented its maiden and a historic Rs 1 lakh crore Budget for the city with their prime focus on health, education and transport sectors. These three sectors got the maximum share in the Budget with a collective amount of Rs 45,136 crore.

The total budget includes revenue expenditure of Rs 71,884.52 crore and capital expenditure of Rs 28,115.48. The allocation of capital expenditure was this time almost doubled by the government, saying that the amount will be used to develop the Capital’s road, drains, education and health.